Democratic socialists have emerged as some of the biggest winners of the midterm elections, with a new group heading to Congress after a string of decisive victories on Tuesday. Only a handful of candidates running in prominent races this year are members of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) or identified themselves as democratic socialists. They notched a series of victories in congressional primaries this year, after the rise of democratic socialist Zohran Mamdani, who spurred the DSA's growth following his election as New York City's mayor last year.
Most of the victories came in safely Democratic territory, after some of the candidates toppled establishment Democrats in hotly contested primary campaigns, setting up a test of how the left's candidates would perform in a general election. In a historic night for the DSA, eight candidates who are either members of the organization or backed by it won their races, with preliminary results showing some have significantly outperformed the margins Democrats recorded in their districts in 2024. Representatives Rashida Tlaib of Michigan and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York, the only two sitting lawmakers who are members of the DSA, also won reelection—meaning the number of DSA members in Congress will more than triple when the legislative body is seated in January.
As well as increasing the number of DSA lawmakers on Capitol Hill, the coalition could have outsize influence if Democrats win back the House with a thin majority and seek policy wins that push the Democratic Party further to the left. "One thing is already clear, this will be an issue for 2028," Grant Davis Reeher, a professor of political science at Syracuse University, told Newsweek. "That wing of the party will have to be given a meaningful seat at the table for determining national strategy, and given the presidential primary system, those voters will be a factor in the nomination process," he added.
Chevalier won the race to represent New York's 13th Congressional District. With 92 percent of the votes counted, she had 87.5 percent of the vote while Republican Jomo M. Williams had 11.4 percent.
That 70-point margin is larger than the 66-point margin of victory that five-term Representative Adriano Espaillat—who lost to Chevalier in the primary—secured in the district in 2024. Chevalier, a political newcomer who once helped organize pro-Palestinian protests at Columbia University, made opposition to Israel's military campaign in Gaza a cornerstone of her campaign. McKinney, who overcame a huge spending disadvantage to unseat Representative Shri Thanedar in the Democratic primary, won the race in Michigan's 13th Congressional District.
The called the race at 3:33 a.m. on Wednesday. With 64 percent of the votes counted, McKinney had 75.6 percent of the vote compared to Republican T.P. His current margin of victory is 54.9 percentage points.
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